Pathfinder 2E Regarding the complexity of Pathfinder 2

[FrozenNorth]

In that case, it doesn’t matter whether PCs are at full hp. They can’t win regardless. If we accept that as a valid encounter, then it’s not too much of a stretch to consider ones where they’re too depleted as valid too. And if those are valid, they become useful tools for applying pressure to PCs in a dungeon.

I am not sure if I agree with this reasoning. According to the math of PF2, even monsters the same level as the PCs hit like a truck (and naturally, can hit up to 3 times on a turn).

If you take a monster that is much higher level (say L+3 or L+4) and combine it with PCs that are already injured, you are likely to end up with multiple dead PCs, even if they are trying to flee.

 

[FrozenNorth]

So - PF2 combat and game play don't seem terribly complicated to me. I've been at this 40 years now and I GM games like GURPS and HERO. There are not a ton of complicated procedures (maybe figuring modifiers to a roll having the potential for most "points of handling"). What is unfortunate is many gamers look at the breadth of a game and measure complexity on choices. There is a LOT of choices in PF2, but in my experience players like choices.

In our group, we had 3 veteran RPGers (though none of us had extensive recent experience with Pathfinder). Here are the rules that regularly tripped up the veteran RPGers in our group :

• Incap. Both the wizard and the GM understood the rule just fine, BUT the wizard knew which of his spells were incap but not the level of the monsters while the GM knew the level of the monsters but not which spells were incap. I tried to state each time I used an incap spell. However, I did forget a couple of times, and at least one of those times it made a difference (DM did not apply incap when he should have).
• Bonuses that don’t stack. The types of bonuses are not particularly intuitive. When choosing my character, I was toying with a goblin sorcerer, but it was only a long time later when I read the forums that I realized that Burn it! and Dangerous Sorcery don’t stack (and that they overlap, but not completely). A character regularly cast Bless (he didn’t specify that it was a typed bonus) and the other players basically treated it like an untyped bonus.
• Skill feats that apply in specific circumstances only. In our game, the Lie to me feat was a repeat offender. It allows a character to use Deception instead of Perception to detect lies, but only if the character is in conversation with the liar (presumably by probing the character with lies). We had issues whether it applied where the character was present but not being addressed, even though in one circumstance the liar was actively trying to deceive the character (the liar knew he was being overheard).
• Keeping track of circumstantial +1 bonuses. I just avoided the feats that gave +1 Elven defense to emotional effects, +1 Dwarven bonus to magic (or separate bonus to poison) because I knew I would probably forget to apply them. Once again, in the Elven example, the person applying the bonus isn’t in a position to know if it applies, unless the GM specifies keywords before the attack is resolved.
• Secret rolls. We straight up ignored this rule.

I hope this is of use to Morrus in designing rules that aren’t likely to trip up the players.

I know some of these elements were in common use in Pathfinder or 3rd ed, but you shouldn’t assume familiarity with those two systems when evaluating complexity.

 

[Philip Benz]

I am not sure if I agree with this reasoning. According to the math of PF2, even monsters the same level as the PCs hit like a truck (and naturally, can hit up to 3 times on a turn).

If you take a monster that is much higher level (say L+3 or L+4) and combine it with PCs that are already injured, you are likely to end up with multiple dead PCs, even if they are trying to flee.

Exactly. This marks a paradigm shift from DD3.5 and PF1, where adversaries at L+3 or L+4 were common and not really that big of a deal. In PF2, adversaries at L= party are genuinely dangerous, and all it takes is a spot of bad luck to make them deadly foes. Like in our recent AoA game, where we (the PCs) began our first three fights with 2 or 3 critical failures... each time.

When it happened to me, I remembered to use a hero point. The other players didn't. It was rough going.

Still, regarding deadly encounters with adversaries above the party level requires a shift in what players expect from the game. Often, in DD3.5 and PF1, it felt like we could always be on "charge the enemy, no matter what" mode and do fine. Now, with PF2, I feel like we need to carefully evaluate each situation and figure out if a frontal attack is really in our best interests. Which is a good thing, IMHO, and leads to a more nuanced roleplaying experience.

 

[CapnZapp]

Exactly. This marks a paradigm shift from DD3.5 and PF1, where adversaries at L+3 or L+4 were common and not really that big of a deal. In PF2, adversaries at L= party are genuinely dangerous, and all it takes is a spot of bad luck to make them deadly foes. Like in our recent AoA game, where we (the PCs) began our first three fights with 2 or 3 critical failures... each time.

When it happened to me, I remembered to use a hero point. The other players didn't. It was rough going.

Still, regarding deadly encounters with adversaries above the party level requires a shift in what players expect from the game. Often, in DD3.5 and PF1, it felt like we could always be on "charge the enemy, no matter what" mode and do fine. Now, with PF2, I feel like we need to carefully evaluate each situation and figure out if a frontal attack is really in our best interests. Which is a good thing, IMHO, and leads to a more nuanced roleplaying experience.

The point here isn't "the monster experience in PF2 is really good" (it is!) but that you can't expect players to move deeper into the dungeon before at or close to full health.

Shaving 10-20 minutes off a rest makes little sense in the context of the game.

Not only does it noticeably and significantly increase the risks, but for what?

If the rest takes 20 or 40 minutes already, what is the problem with taking another 20?

 

[CapnZapp]

To expand upon that:

Imagine the game actually enforcing costs commensurate with the rewards (reduced risks).

Then you might see a rule where
2 minute rest gives back one heap of hp, and the risk (exposure to wandering monsters, reinforced monster strongholds, etc) is slight

20 minute rest gives back two dollops of health, but now nearby monsters are much more likely to investigate...

Finally 2 hours of rest heals all incurred damage, but if the monsters are going to react, they will have done so. The element of surprise is lost, every reinforcable sentry had been reinforced, and so on...

---

PF2 doesn't work that way.

Instead you're asked to take a tangible "risk increase" for each 10-minute period you skip.

That's ten measly minutes, and not compared to zero, but to just ten minutes less.

No wonder players sit tight to enjoy the free and gratis healing provided by Medicine rather than moving forth!

The cost benefit analysis heavily skews towards "sit tight for just 10 more minutes."

 

[nevin]

Me and a really good friend had a discussion awhile back that touched on this. He tried to tell me that D&D had been tactical. I pointed out that D&D was a Roleplaying game that used tactical combat but that pathfinder was a tactical game that had Roleplaying attached. He didn't like it but he finally had to agree that was true. I think that's why many roleplayers are just not accepting 2E.

IMO it's like logging in and playing wow. Kill your monster, rest, kill your monster, rest. From a roleplaying perspective you lose all those great story arc's where for whatever reason healing isn't available and they lose 2 months recuperating before they can go back out again. And I know DM's can add all the roleplaying they want but the Game rules focus so much on combat and tactics that new DM's tend to never get passed that.

 

[Philip Benz]

Nevin, I see where you're coming from, but IMHO that's all on the DM and the players. A DM who has a compelling storyline in his pocket, with clues, NPCs to interact with, and clever objectives that go beyond killing critters & taking their stuff will do fine. A DM who struggles with the rules and thinks that yet another encounter with more monsters is an adequate substitute for a plot, will flounder. Similarly, players who ignore clues and are just looking for more loot and xp shouldn't be surprised that their game experience is reduced to a tactical combat grind.

But that's true of any RPG. It was true in the 70s and it's true today.

FWIW, I think the suggestions made here and elsewhere that PCs have to be at full health before any fight are rubbish. Often enough, in the games I've played, there are time constraints that prevent players from taking 10 minutes, let alone 40-60 minutes after every fight to rest & treat their wounds. Fortunately, the existence of clerics (and a few other classes) who have healing spells and powers and the existence of items like healing potions help make the action a wee bit more dynamic. And if the PCs are wounded and they think they're heading into a fight, maybe they'll pay a little more attention to the terrain and their tactics, rather than just charging the foe and trusting to the DM's aversion for TPKs to carry the day.

 

[kenada]

I should clarify: I'm talking out of the assumption that the adventure is an official Adventure Path written by Paizo. (I said so in the other thread but forgot to clarify this here. My bad.)

That’s fair. I don’t necessarily think this discussion needs to be constrained just to what Paizo publishes in their adventures, but I admit that’s likely to be the most common way people experience the game.

But any encounter, even a Moderate one, can easily take a Fighter from full health down to zero, so I have to insist: I rely more on my practical play experience than what the book tells me (Just reading a rulebook sometimes tells you what the designers wish their game does, rather than what it actually does do... right?)

I find the encounter-building guidelines work pretty well in PF2, so I think it’s fair to look to them to see what Paizo intended. Regarding your example, I’ve had that happen several times. I’d consider that working as intended. My players tend not to be great at tactics. That’s one of the things the CRB lists that can cause problems, and it has and does. I’d posit that you can go into everything but an extreme encounter at less than full resources and have a chance of winning. You might have to rest and regroup afterward, but I don’t think that’s unfair (since you can continue adventuring tomorrow).

Now, whether Paizo writes adventures where you fight severe and extreme encounters too much, I don’t know. The last AP I ran was Shattered Star, and I’m probably not going to be running any of the ones for PF2. If they are designed such that there are “too many” hard encounters, then I think that’s a shame. It does the system a disservice, and it puts GMs in a bad position where they have to make sure the PCs are actually ready to deal with the challenges the adventures are providing.

 

[kenada]

Not sure I find this theoretical approach very helpful.

I was presenting it as theoretical because I wanted to avoid making an argument from anecdote. I run my game with wandering monsters, but it’s not random fights.

If my heroes are in the middle of healing up from low health, and I spring a wandering monster on them, they will most likely defeat it. What they will then do is get back to healing up hp. The only practical result is that story progress is delayed (assuming the wandering monsters doesn't come at such a rapid rate they deplete hp quicker than Medicine can replenish it, which I take we agree is a very safe assumption - the dungeon where the wandering monsters are deadlier than the actual dungeon doesn't seem like a fun experience, and I have never seen one in any official Paizo product anyway)

The way you make wandering monsters interesting is you add them to the dungeon’s ecology. If the players decide to spend some time healing, don’t just spring a fight on them randomly. They’ll see what you’re doing, and it’ll probably feel punitive to them. Instead, have the monsters reinforce or reoccupy areas that have already been explored. This provides an opportunity cost to resting without just randomly dinging them for some of the resources they’ve recovered. Like I said before, this isn’t entirely theoretical. My PCs are very worried about “losing progress” when they rest, so they rarely spend enough time to heal up fully.

To be fair, and you call this out too, wandering monsters aren’t necessarily a great fit for a pre-written adventure. They’re designed a certain way with a certain pacing. Since you clarified in your other response that you were talking about APs, I’ll grant you that here. You’d need to retool the dungeons to accommodate wandering monsters, which could potentially mess up the pacing. However, something like an adversary roster might be a possible middle ground. Instead of keeping encounters static, you have them move and react to the PCs’ presence. You’re still not going ‘over budget’ in terms of overall quantity of encounters, but now you can’t just assume things will stay the same. Even WotC’s adventures are starting to use them (apparently Rime of the Frost Maiden has one), so it’d be nice to see Paizo start doing likewise.

Wandering monsters work much better in a game where free healing is scarce and slow. If healing doesn't cost you anything, damage can't cause attrition. In Pathfinder 2, my impression is that attrition is caused through conditions, not hp loss.

Like I said above, if you can create an opportunity cost for resting, then healing is no longer free. Even if they use resources to do it faster, that’s resources they no longer have later. However, as I also agreed above, APs and adventures not designed with that in mind require separate consideration and possibly tweaks to make such an approach work properly. Anyway, I think that’s an interesting observation regarding conditions. What makes them different from healing? If someone is e.g., drained 2, they’re still effectively down hit points. Is it that they just can’t get them back on a reasonable timescale?

 

[kenada]

And that's my bigger point: had "gather information" worked more like how it works in other games, with the combat subsystem scrapped entirely, Pathfinder 2 would have been a better game.

For some reason, this got me thinking of the VP rules. I wonder if you could use a combat-scale VP subsystem to handle this, such that the first Recall Knowledge works as normal but the subsequent ones accumulate Knowledge Points, and you get additional details as you move down the track.

For example, you could have a 4 KP scale with milestone at 2 KP. Because VP subsystems are meant to be handled by the group, PCs could work together to Recall Knowledge about a creature. At 1 KP, you just learn the common fact. At 2 KP, you get something more specific (like a weakness or reactive ability), and at 3 KP and 4 KP, you start getting into subtler differences like weaknesses or resistances.

There’s still an opportunity cost, but it seems like it would feel less crappy to the PCs. Even if you got the 1KP, someone could chime in that they also know something, so your action wasn’t entirely wasted. It also provides a framework for the “hey, you made a knowledge check? I’m going to do that too” thing that players seem to like to do.